Nancy Kaufman Last week, many of us followed with much anxiety the Supreme Court debate about the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, referred to in some circles as “Obamacare.” Of great interest to the average American was the challenge to the requirement that almost all Americans have health insurance coverage.… Read more »
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) – Pundits have been pointing fingers since a recent poll found that 50 percent of Mississippi and Alabama GOP supporters said they believe that President Obama is a Muslim (with approximately another 40 percent in both states saying they are unsure). Some accuse Republicans of attempting… Read more »
Last month, a contingent of leaders from the North American Conservative movement returned to the United States. All the members of this mission, rabbis, congregation leaders and philanthropists, had already been to Israel dozens of times. They are major activists in Jewish Federations, AIPAC, Hadassah, you name it. They… Read more »
(JTA) — Thirty years ago, a Jewish woman experiencing domestic violence had few places to turn. Community leaders strongly resisted acknowledging violence for fear that it would harm marriages and break up families. Few services existed for women seeking support in a Jewish setting. Prior to 1994, the U.S.… Read more »
Israel’s best kept secret is not of the “maybe yes, maybe no” variety. In fact it is a “yes” so definitive that it has 162 million Google entries. Honest. That’s Google’s response when you type in “Israel’s nuclear policy” — books, articles, essays, arguments, all blithely recognizing that Israel… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — During February, Jewish communities across North America observe Jewish Disability Awareness Month. It is an opportunity for us to raise awareness of the needs, strengths, opportunities and challenges of individuals with disabilities in our communities, and to ensure we are building more inclusive communities that celebrate… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A spate of recent media reports has discussed the inclusion of ultranationalists in the Russian protest movement. Jewish organizations, sensitive to the fragility of a newly emergent Russian civil society and Jewish community, need to speak out against this inclusion. Ultranationalism and xenophobia are not unique… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The link between hatred of Jews and of the only Jewish state often requires little conjecture. This is particularly so in the Arab world, where cultivated popular anti-Semitism has been ignored abroad as an impetus of regional conflict. For evidence that anti-Israel sentiment in the Middle… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The recent violence in Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood has led me to speak out against the so-called “sikrikim” in the harshest possible terms, equating their actions to terrorism. Sikrikim is the name given to a fringe anti-Zionist vigilante group, loosely linked to Neturei… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Just as college students were finishing their winter exams, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg selected a partnership of The Technion Israel Institute of Technology and Cornell University to build a campus on Roosevelt Island that will become a global center for technological talent and entrepreneurship. Few… Read more »
RAMAT GAN, Israel (JTA) — In Israel, an estimated 15,000 individuals are involved in prostitution, including 5,000 under the age of 18, according to reports shared with the Task Force on Human Trafficking by Knesset member Orit Zuaretz of the Kadima Party, as well as other experts and activists.… Read more »
When news outlets began reporting last Friday that the owner of the Atlanta Jewish Times had published an opinion column seemingly suggesting that Israel might be wise to assassinate President Obama, the response from prominent American Jews was fast and furious. Here was a Jewish newspaper publisher providing fodder… Read more »
Robert Wistrich The Muslim Brotherhood did not initiate the current upheavals in the Middle East, but the Islamist parties in Egypt, as in Tunisia and Libya, have been the chief beneficiaries of the collapse of longstanding authoritarian repressive regimes across North Africa. In Egypt itself, the two largest Islamist groups —… Read more »
Rabbi Sid Schwarz About a year and half ago, I participated in a fact-finding mission to Israel sponsored by the Inter-Agency Task Force on Israeli Arabs (IATF). Established in 2006 as a consortium of some of the major organizations in American Jewish life — including the Joint Distribution Committee, the Conference of… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — It is virtually impossible to imagine anything more reprehensible than the recent spectacle of haredi Orthodox Jewish boys wearing yellow stars of David and simulated striped black-and-white concentration camp uniforms at a demonstration in Jerusalem. Offended by the Israeli authorities’ efforts to curtail the verbal… Read more »
BEIT SHEMESH (JTA) — It’s raining as I write — a rare, cold, hard rain that is welcomed by Jerusalemites who know that it’s good for them and the country. Water, like patience, is a treasured commodity here in Israel: temporarily inconvenient, but better for you in the long… Read more »
The rise of the forces of jihadist Islam in Egypt places the United States and other Western powers in an uncomfortable position. The United States is the guarantor of Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel. That treaty is based on the proposition of land for peace. Israel gave Egypt Sinai… Read more »
Kenneth Bob David Ben Gurion, who later became the founding prime minister of Israel, was the leader of the Labor Zionist movement that led the pre-state Jewish Palestine community and provided the core values to the emerging state. It was not a coincidence that when it was necessary to establish… Read more »
Danny Danon JERUSALEM (JTA) — The State of Israel has always prided itself on being not only a home to its native citizens but a haven for Jews from across the globe. For years the Ministry of Immigration Absorption has successfully focused on attracting Jews from around the world to make… Read more »
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Have I got a secret agent for you! When Hamas is smuggling missiles, and Iranians are building A-bombs deep underground, to whom can Israel turn? 007? No way. He’s busy playing baccarat or keeping the world from being fried by space lasers. He hasn’t time for the… Read more »
